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November 04, 2012

Sunday Morning

The Sunday NY Times explains the apparent lack of a Pentagon response in Benghazi: the Quick Response Team was training in Croatia, the nearest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan, and a Delta team scrambled from North Carolina was too far away and too late.
The good news? Obama was TOTALLY on it. The bad news? Expecting the Pentagon to respond quickly to trouble in the Med or the Middle East on a 9-11 anniversary is expecting too much.
This will be a tough couple of days for the Times since they can't report anything but Admin spin on Benghazi and Staten Island until Wednesday.

the Quick Response Team was training in Croatia, the nearest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan, and a Delta team scrambled from North Carolina was too far away and too late.

I wonder if I could have used that excuse back in the day: I flunked the exam because I didn't study because I'd left all my books and materials at school. And I was late with my income taxes because I hadn't gotten all my documents together before April 15th unexpectedly came around.

He's the President! Commander-in-Chief! And he's saying the dog ate his homework?! He's gonna get SHITCANNED!

I think the Newsday endorsement is more significant than the Daily News', although Newsday is 16th in U.S. circulation where the News is 7th. More significant because Long Island, where Newsday is published and circulated, is a swing area, going just mildly for Obama in '08. And also because Newsday has always been such a reliably liberal rag. In 1968 my 6th grade class visited their offices, and half the furniture was emblazoned with "Vote Liberal, Row D" bumperstickers, and they've carried on in that spirit since.

Yes, Barry, today we have these things called aircraft carriers, and planes can take off from them. Problem is, we don't have any of them in the Mediterranean Sea. The United States Sixth Fleet has zero aircraft carriers.

Nice foggy am in Tampa. From our military friends we understand this excuse of lack of manpower to be utter BS. There are multiple teams that specialize in immediate response based in Europe, not just one.

For those who have family or friends that are voting for Democrats, my guess is those people think they are voting for:

"middle-of-the-road blue-collar Americans "

While the people they are actually voting for are: " Extreme leftists, like the ones who made this graffiti in Berkeley, who hate capitalism, hate America, and want to usher in a socialist revolution;"

The people you know are good people even thro they are voting for Democrats "have been have been tricked into making an alliance with radicals whose very goal is to destroy the fabric of middle-class society."

There is little about CSG online. All I could find was an obscure entry in a Fema glossary.

I wanted to know specifically if it is a group founded by Bush because I was wondering if partisanship was carried so far that a Bush organization would not be consulted.

www.fema.gov/glossary

((Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG): An interagency body convened on a regular basis to develop terrorism prevention policy and to coordinate threat response and law enforcement investigations associated with terrorism. This group evaluates various policy issues of interagency importance regarding counterterrorism and makes recommendations to senior levels of the policymaking structure for decision.))

Romney rolls to a 23-point bulge in heavily Republican southwestern Ohio, a 17-point lead in western Ohio and a 4-point edge in northwestern Ohio, which in past elections has proved a reliable barometer for the whole state.

I think that pretty everyone here has caught on to the fact that this is almost as much an indictment of Obama as if he had actually ordered them to stand down that night.

Part of the CInC job is to keep us safe. That includes preparing and anticipating this sort of thing. He wasn't interested in international security, as evidenced by skipping so many of his PDBs, and so the people below him didn't take the threats seriously. There were more important things on the agenda, like making nice with the Muslim world, and starting to wind down our war on terror because we won it when he (almost personally) killed OBL. So, we could pull security out of Benghazi in August, sent the QRT to train in Croatia, etc., and start paring down our military when sequester hits at the first of the year.

Except, of course, they were disastrously wrong. The world is not a safer place by Obama and his people showing tolerance instead of strength to the rest of the world. Al Quaeda is reemboldened. Much of the Muslim world is on the march back to the 7th Century with the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood last year, etc.

"Thirty-nine percent (39%) of voters are projected to be Democrats and 37% Republicans. Both candidates do well within their own party, while Romney has a nine-point advantage among unaffiliated voters."

As a long time lurker, this is my chance to thank TM and the posters here for all the incredible analysis, recipes, travel tips and general life observations that I've gleaned from this blog. Thanks for keeping me sane in these crazy times. And don't worry I' m not another Steve or dudu.

The Clinton years baby bust is part of the cause of the huge shift in the median age of the electorate, aging Baby Boomers accounting for more than the Clinton abortion mania. The 39% reduction in new entrants hits the Democrat baby killers much harder than the GOP.

Did anyone listen to Stephabsserlus' entire statement? I'm wondering what his basis is. Perhaps he should tell his pal Clinton to get out of Pennsylvania, which surely would be locked up by the supposed Obama Surge.

I'm trying to find the comical in the news.There are three other "independents" on the ballot in Maine.I give these men credit for getting into the political arena.Yesterday the Senate candidates had a debate and in his closing statements,one the independent candidates,Steve Woods, withdrew and gave his endorsement to Angus King. Mr.Woods currently owns businesses in Maine,but at one time he was the tour manager for "The Amazing Kreskin",which earned him the coveted "Amazing Kreskin" endorsement.

Jane, bear in mind that what they see in Obama largely never existed and was based on faulty perceptions. The same could be true about their excitement about an Obama win. I'm placing my bets on the outcome on the eyes that see more clearly than they do.

In terms of the panel discussions today, please recall that the great Nate Silver himself recently wrote that most of the predictions on these talk shows turn out to be wrong. The so-called "experts" are not actually all that expert.

I have never been creative with on line names. I came herw early in the Libby-Plame days and really didn't know what to do when I tried to sign up with Typepad. My location seemed the best option, giving other commenters an idea of where I was commenting from. Also, I thought I was only going to comment that once. HA!

The joke was on me, of course, during the first two years or so, several thought I was centraical and they couldn't decipher what it meant. lol.

Nicolae Ceausescu was the president of Romania between 1965 and 1989. He was called the "Danube of Thought", "Genius of Carpatians" and "The enlightened One" by the Communist Party but best way to summarize the feelings of the general opinion of the Romanian people is by Eugene Ionesco "Ceausescu is a mad man. His wife...is also mad. And it is these people who are being allowed freely to torture 23 million people."

Not a whole lot of resemblance DOT - or are you claiming to be a madman?

Mine is an alias the character played by Eddie Bracken gave to a justice of the peace in the Preston Sturgess movie, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

I seem to recall one weird troll telling me I actually got it from a character named Ignatz in the Krazy Kat comic strip. When I pointed out it was from the movie he claimed Sturgess also got it from Krazy Kat, apparently convinced that was the first known usage of the name Ignatz.
What a nut.

"Look. For America’s enemies to succeed at world domination, America must be neutered. That means America’s military must be decimated. Obama is well on the way to doing just that to the greatest military force on the globe. If “sequestration” is allowed to stand, come 2013, America’s military will be gutted. "

Sandy Daze refers to the climatological conditions (weather ?, global-warming caused ?) I lived in over the previous few years, fwiw.

I think the Dems are dillusional. The afordable care act has consistently polled in the high 50% AGAINST. If you wanted only one, could have only one barometer of how Tuesday will resolve, it could be the strong number of Americans opposed to health-care mandate. This number has NEVER gone below 50%

BTW - the article linked below is, in my view, an excellent summation of the Catholic Church's position written not from the Cardinal's desk or from a Bishop's pen, but from the Investors Business Daily:

[Reblogged because while I was writing my comment someone snuck in a new thread.]

Someone above linked to Robert Reich's ravings. Which prompted me to write:

Constructing his own fantasy world, Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under Clinton, has listed ten points he believes define Romneyism as different from conservatism.

Reich falsely accuses Romney of believing that, “We owe nothing to another as citizens of the same society.” Reich seals his ignorance with that remark. Reich’s religion is the dogma that refuses to believe that the commercial marketplace most effectively benefits the more people in a culture than any other political system and that minimal regulation helps care for the rest.

1) Reich misrepresents Romney as having corporations be the basic unit of society, which means Reich would have government the basic unit of society instead of the individual.
2) Reich accuses Romney of treating workers as the means of maximizing corporate profits. Reich does not explain what to do with incompetent or unnecessary workers. Reich has no place for the mechanisms of a commercial marketplace.
3) Romney apparently wants an efficient economy while Reich wants “fairness.” The meaning of fairness is, of course, up to Reich to define.
4) Reich says that Romney is against all regulation regarding pollution, unsafe products, working conditions, etc., which is untrue, but Reich is a Pigouvian who wants the power to tax negative side effects of enterprise and decide which of his special friends get to benefit from his decision.
5) Reich accuses Romney of believing that failure to make a fortune is a sign of moral and intellectual inferiority when Reich’s accusation seems a better indicator of his own failing logic.
6) Reich’s strawman Romney believes those who fail should not be coddled but Reich fails to consider whether transitional aid is more functional than permanent subsidy.
7) Reich argues that following tax law is unethical but leaves it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why following the law should be against the law.
8) Perhaps Reich’s most outrageous projection is to accuse Romney of playing politics by any means to win, as if situational ethics were not the hallmark of Democrat practice.
9) Reich accuses Romney of believing that democracy is dangerous because it is forever vulnerable to the votes of a majority intent on capturing the wealth of the successful minority, on whom the economy depends. Reich comes close to admitting that his party depends on buying a majority coalition using taxing and redistribution authority.
10) Finally, Reich accuses Romney of believing that three most important aspects of life are family, religion, and money rather than joining together for the common good. This is where Reich, as ostensibly and intellectual, exposes his stunning ignorance. Growing wealth benefits everyone. As the pie gets bigger in a dynamic economy, more and better goods and services become more affordable for the least among us, and more opportunity comes available to work.

Reich’s blog entry is the the last ditch anguished cry of someone whose shallow facade voters are about to expose.

He will be here in the Tidewater Virginia are tonight, landing at the same airport I had the pleasure of meeting him back on 8 October. Indeed a whistle stop, looks like he having the plane pulled up to the ramp, jumping out, a few last words and then off again !

Yes, let us think of the multiple levels of command failure involved in that decision. It goes all the way to the top. One has to wonder if Obama ever ask 'Are we ready for a high profile attack on 9/11?'

Of course not, he would have to actually attend morning threat briefings to ask that question.

And given that there were mounting security warning coming out of Libya about Benghazi, and we had just killed a promenat Libyan member of al Qaeda, where the 'Dot Connectors' at the CIA on this one?

Back from church...
Sat next to a woman that immigrated from Iraq. She is scared for our country. She said if she is sick on Tuesday, she will call an ambulance to take her to vote!
...& we went out last night with our good friend from Spain. He can't vote, but he hates Obama & talks politics with everyone. A missionary against socialism!
...& I think I posted before how I met a Russian immigrant couple when I went to see 2016. The woman was crying at the end of the movie....can't understand why Americans can't SEE.
Anyway...it sure seems like people that came to America for freedom can see the evil of the Obama administration.

Virginia just instituted Voter ID, and some here are pointing out that Virginia may not be callable until Friday if enough people show up at the polls having forgotten their IDs and being allowed to vote provisionally with the requirement to show ID by Friday.

I've always had to show ID here anyway, so perhaps enough Virginians are already in the habit of bringing ID that this won't be a problem.

Turnout as a percentage of registered voters, however, was down overall in the state for 2012 vs 2008. DEMS ended up turning out 45% of their registered voters compared to 48% in 2008. REPS turned out 40% of their registered voters compared to 42% in 2008.

Democrats had their best day of the week yesterday to close out the early voting.

Yesterday's vote, according to my splits, had Romney getting 95,037 and Obama 94,957. That's 48.64% to 48.60% for those keeping score at home.

Heh. Like I could really claim to be that precise.

Anyway, I am projecting that Romney is up 73K votes as we head to Tuesday's election, with a 50.0% to 47.3% advantage. That compares to McCain being behind by 272K votes in 2008, with a 54.6% to 44.4% deficit.

McCain trimmed that deficit to a 14K vote loss, winning election day by some 257K votes. Should Romney turn in an equal performace, he will win the state 54-45.

The ASCD (formerly a NEA division. now an independent parasite financed with your tax money) put out a Newsletter late last week that made it clear that Obama's Positive School Climate mandate tucked into NCLB waivers and finally enacted everywhere by Exec Order was intended to squelch every bit of individualism out via education. The mandated altruism that drove Rand into a frenzy.

This is calculated too. The groundwork has been going into place for a number of years and I doubt John Templeton would have liked this use of his money anymore than what Annenberg ended up financing in education.

The Resource Manual is already in use all over Illinois. I found it on a school server there as I was following up the ASCD Newsletter.

And I am mad over this one. I went back and reread what Hayek had to say about the critical importance of human freedom.

No American should be looking at school officials who have been told they get to, and in fact, must take that all away.

***
New to this post is I am getting traffic from people looking for the connection between Bill Ayers and UNESCO. Which I find interesting. I had totally not appreciated what a nice info gathering device a blog can be.

wondering if there will be a pat caddel moment where, as caddel did to Carter,some one tells Barack and Michelle that the votes just arent there. (Axelrod appeared more subdued that normal this morning and was unusually reflective)

My handle is my middle name.I have the same first name as my Mom,so from day one I was called by my middle name,except at school.I only use my first name for "official" reasons,signing IRS returns,etc.

How on earth could this JUG EARED MOTHER EFFER not have some sort of plans in place for our Diplomats or citizens in case of problems in the M.E. or N.Africa. The who fugging place is on fire. It seems the the longer Obama serves, the bigger the fug ups get.

Here is my "this time it's different" take on Pennsylvania. It's very simple.

In the 2010 election, the GOP won control of the state legislature, the Governor's race, the Senate race and 13 out of 19 House seats. The only Pennsylvania House seat being seriously contested in the 2012 cycle has a Democrat incumbent.

The 'Philly Edge' for the Democrats has been cut down by the Voter ID law as well as Obama's decision to pull 'walking around' money. Additionally, Bucks and Montgomery counties are tracking other suburban counties across the Midwest wrt the degree of revulsion against Obama.

"In fact, every terrorist attack sponsored by the jihadists is not a separate event but a well-coordinated declaration of war in the global attack against Western democracy and Judeo-Christian values."

Re Chewie's 11:42 AM post: The Dem attempts to steal this are in full swing. This will be a far more difficult situation for Team Romney than going up against William Bulger and his supporters in Massachsuetts when Mitt was Governor. I think Team Mitt is up to the task.